Unconditional Surrender: The Conclusion of Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen

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Description

The third book in Waugh's satirical wartime trilogy, Sword of Honour Guy Crouchback has lost his Halberdier idealism. A desk job in London gives him the chance of reconciliation with his former wife. Then, in Yugoslavia, as a liaison officer with the partisans, he finally becomes aware of the futility of a war he once saw in terms of honour.

Reviews

A maverick historian * The Atlantic *
The greatest novelist of my generation -- Graham Greene
Our time's first satirist is Evelyn Waugh. For thirty years his savagery and wit have given pleasure and alarm -- Gore Vidal * The New York Times *

Author Bio

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.